Various microbes responsible for enteric infections include salmonella,
shigella, rotavirus, norovirus, c. difficile, cryptosporidium, vibrio
and campylobacter. These diseases may range from asymptomatic to having
mild to severe symptoms such as bloody diarrhea, abdominal cramps, stool
containing blood or pus, fever and weight loss. Incubation period varies
from few days to few weeks depending on the disease and severity. In
order to reduce the chance of developing complications, these diseases
needed to be diagnosed early.

Earlier, diagnosis of enteric diseases relied on culture results of
stool pecimen that involved identification of causative pathogens in a
culture medium. However, the trend is now shifting from culture methods
to other diagnostic methods owing to limitations associated with culture
tests. Major drawbacks associated with culture tests include high cost,
labor intensive, requires sophisticated laboratory and a skilled person
to perform the diagnosis. On the other hand, enzyme-linked immunosorbent
assay (ELISA) and polymerase chain reaction (PCR (News - Alert)) has made enteric
infection diagnosis easy and fast.

In developed regions such as North America and Europe, PCR based
diagnosis is most recommended testing method for enteric diseases as it
offers high sensitivity and specificity and is considered as easy,
accurate, rapid and reliable method of diagnosis. Latest introductions
in MALDI-TOF have also been developed for rapid diagnosis of whole
organisms without destruction of infection sample. Asia-Pacific
accounting for more than 50% of the total global population represents
the most profitable market for enteric disease testing in terms of
growth and potential.